<B>CityDance Ensemble, Reaching to the Past</B><P>Modern Series Reprises Local Works <BR> <BR>By Sarah Kaufman in The Washington Post <P><BR>CityDance Ensemble is a local modern dance group of modest means but grand ambitions. Its program Tuesday at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater -- the troupe's first appearance there -- featured six dances, seven musical interludes and a film. <P>More cabaret than dance concert, perhaps, but that was a welcome effect. If one piece didn't quite work, a better one came along soon enough. Several of them were memorable gems.<P><A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32383-2001Sep26.html" TARGET=_blank><B>more...</B></A><BR>

<B>CityDance's Power Players</B><BR>Technique, Creativity -- and Politics -- Distinguish This Troupe<BR>By Pamela Squires for The Washington Post<BR> <P>CityDance Ensemble is a Washington story. One of its musicians is a space policy analyst. Another works for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and the troupe's executive director, Paul Emerson, is a former Capitol Hill defense policy analyst who took his first dance class wearing Dockers and a pinstripe shirt. Saturday at Dance Place, the six-year-old, 18-member company demonstrated the ambition, hard work and competitiveness that drive successful Washingtonians.<P><A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12359-2002Jan20.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

AT JUST seven years old, CityDance Ensemble is experiencing a growth spurt. This little company that could, founded on a whim and a fancy when choreographer Tara Pierson Dunning presented a group work at a Joy of Motion Dance Project showcase, has been growing like Jack's magic beanstalk. In December, the troupe was invited to St. Petersburg as the opening attraction of the Mussorgsky State Theater's modern dance festival, and it will return to Russia in 2004. In January, Dance Magazine named the company one of "25 to Watch" in a roundup of international dance artists.

This weekend, the troupe scales another height. Thursday night it opened a four-night run at Dance Place with a program dedicated to African American choreographers. This is the first time Washington's most prolific dance presenter has dedicated four consecutive nights to a local troupe.

FilmWORKS: an art is born By Jean Battey Lewis for THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Capturing dance on film has come a long way since its early beginnings. Witness the more than three hours of dance on PBS this past Wednesday evening that ranged from documentaries to reasonable facsimiles of live performances.

Using the devices of film and the moving images of dance to create a different, independent art form is much less often explored.

City Dance Ensemble was looking good Sunday at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington.

A great deal of the dancing was on a comfortably professional level. Artistic Director Paul Gordon Emerson wisely chose small-scale works that suited the center's intimate theater, and many of the works were choreographically strong. That's a pretty good batting average. [/quote]

There were two reasons to see CityDance Ensemble's program Wednesday night at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater: a young star returning to the local stage, and a mature artist bidding farewell.

The rest of the program was ensnared in Issues: Life is scary, war is hell, truth is . . . well, who knows what was going on in that one with the silver face paint and the guy running around wearing big fuzzy angel wings (Vladimir Angelov's "Axiom"). But looking at the bright side, the murkiness of the group works thrust into sharp relief the revelatory contributions of Rasta Thomas and Karen Bernstein.

As openings go, the one from CityDance Ensemble at the brand-new Music Center at Strathmore on Thursday was memorable, not for the political back-patting -- both Maryland Sen. Paul Sarbanes and Montgomery County Executive Douglas Duncan offered congratulatory remarks -- but for the impression that this still-young local troupe can dance in the big leagues.

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